


What He Doesn't Say

by goseaward



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-08-29
Updated: 2003-08-29
Packaged: 2017-10-31 12:18:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/343979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goseaward/pseuds/goseaward
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry needs a favor from Snape.  Snape has an interesting condition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What He Doesn't Say

**Author's Note:**

> Sine Que Non gave me tons of helpful feedback on this, even if she wasn't officially a beta. Thanks, dear!

I am calling him Mr Snape, which is an odd title, but I do it, because Professor is too old and Master too impersonal and nothing at all is too rude. 

He looks at me with the same sneering nonexpression he's used for years, since sixth year even, since he saw too much of my head and never respected me again, not that he had, he never did, but since then he ceased to care. And that hurts. Because how many people really know me? Not very many; I can count them on one hand. But Snape has seen me, seen all of me, and just does—not—care. How could he do that? What is so wrong with me that he refuses to spare emotions from his oh-so-taxing life? But the determined blankness is there; the sneer for form, but the eyes guarded. 

And why does it matter at all? 

"Mr Snape, I was wondering if I could ask a favour." 

The eyebrow quirks. No expression in the eyes. Or is that just my perception? Is there something there? I see black pits, nothing, no soul, no emotion— 

"I suppose that depends upon the favour." 

Blink. Blink. Had he spoken? Yes. "I need something. A Potion." 

"Which Potion?" 

Am I just refusing to see the emotions that are there? 

"Potter—" 

"Oh. Sorry. I'm sorry. Uh. The, um, the Vitalis." 

"Vitalis." Snape purses his lips oh God oh God his lips. "For you or for someone else? Miss Weasley, perhaps?" 

"Ginny? No. Um, for a friend." 

"A friend. The usual euphemism for oneself." 

"Yes." Does he think I need it? Does he think I'm that pitiful? He can't possibly, if he knows me at all he knows that I don't give up like that, how can he think otherwise, he can't... Pause. "I—no, it's not me." 

"Did this person request the potion?" Snape takes my silence as denial, which it is. "It's a very difficult potion. And illegal." 

"I know. Um, I hoped you might do it anyway?" 

"Once a Death Eater, always a Death Eater?" Snape's teeth laugh at me from within his parody of a smile. "I gave up that life a long time ago—as you should know." 

"Please. It's only illegal because people misuse it." 

On the desk, Snape's hands fold and unfold, tiny movements. "I'm well aware of that." He is still waiting for something. What? He should know I will use it well. 

"Tonks." 

The smile is wider this time, genuine, sinister. "Ah. And why would Nymphadora need Vitalis?" 

"You know why." 

He sniffs, then smirks and folds his hands. Those fingers...long flexible strong... "I will give you the potion on one condition." 

"Yes?" Did I answer too fast? He always makes me so confused, so unsure, right now I want to run screaming and I want to climb into his lap and kiss him so hard he won't ever hurt me, not ever again. Pause. "What is it?" 

"You will have to sample it first." 

"Oh." Of all the things I could have expected, this never crossed my mind. What is it he wants me to see? I've never tried drugs, illegal or otherwise, never considered the thready multicoloured perception of Vitalis or the mind-whirling body-folding verve of Metenergis or the fuzziness of Muggle marijuana. "Why?" 

"You'll see. Are the terms acceptable?" 

This feels like a truce with the Devil. Which makes no sense. None of this makes sense, why did I come here, what was I thinking? "Yes." 

"Good." Snape smirks again, stands, walks to a cabinet on the far wall, withdraws a cloudy green glass jar. He already had it made; that's interesting important must remember oh he's speaking again. "Vitalis, the pure form. It would probably kill you." His eyes look up, unreadable, the eyebrows and cheekbones around them smiling, not in a good way. "And much as I'd enjoy that, I think I shall dilute it." 

I wait as he mixes a few drops into a glass of water, which turns a frightening olive green. He also takes a bottle of water and does the same, a few more drops for a bit more water. The bottle he corks and sets on the desk. The glass he hands to me. 

"Go on, drink up," he says with false concern and false intent. I don't know what's going on. Pause. I bring the cup to my lips and take as large a swallow as I can. The potion is tangy and sweet, all at once. Like pure grape juice, perhaps. My eyes water as the potion hits my stomach and seems to expand outward. It hurts in a good kind of way, like certain things do, like Snape would inside me if I could just make him feel something, anything, toward me. 

"That's enough," he says. 

The potion is too large for my stomach. I'm going to explode, shattering bits of Harry over his desk and he'll clean it up with Scourgify without a second glance. Hurts—too—I huddle over the desk; it's never going to stop. I pop. 

The world is suddenly covered in filaments, the connections of things, colourful and descriptive. Spiderwebs of importance lance across my vision, large pulsing silks and tiny cilia; I push my hand through them and they move slightly in a soft wind. I look down and there's a weird blue net in my lap, a strong thick cord going through the desk in front of me. I look up at Snape; more blue seems to knot around his eyes, and they are just as expressive as his voice suddenly, but purple mesh shuts down his sarcastic splendid voice and lets me see only the lust in his eyes. It has always been there, but I couldn't see it. I am floating. He cares. 

Pause. 

I stand up, walk around the desk. The throbbing blue cord wraps his lap in webbing as well, in netting, and I climb in like I longed to before, hard before I can even think about it. I wrap my fingers in strands of his hair, or strands of his thought, whichever it is I cannot tell anymore and kiss those thin web-covered lips teasing licking until they open and then he's sucking my tongue and I'm rutting against him, hard, forceful, jumpy and cloth-covered and joined already. 

This is why it matters. 

His eyes, shrouded in blue, look at me with compassion. What I needed; he wants me. I watch them and come in my trousers, just from the friction and his gaze. 

Wrapping my arms around his neck, I breathe in lemon wolfsbane rosepetal smoke batgut crushed-insect potion gingerroot, the scents of the dungeon I abhorred long before this was so important. I lazily unashamedly hump against him in the aftershocks, but he is not responding...a hand goes down, my hand, limned in gold. He is soft. Did he not enjoy it? He sucked my tongue. Snape sucked my tongue. A knuckle is probing my lips, slipping between them, some men like this so I open and he scrapes some kind of paste across my palate. I choke, spit, but it's too late; I've tasted the bitterness and the filaments dissipate, and I'm left sitting in Snape's lap with a rapidly-cooling wet mess in my pants and my fingers twined in greasy hair. 

Snape looks at me. "Now that we've got your display of adolescent hormones out of the way, I think you can take that to Nymphadora." He gestures at the bottle. Bastard. 

"Thank you, Mr Snape," I say stiffly, and get up and walk out with as much grace as I can manage before I do something really drastic. Just amusement for him after all, then. Watching Harry Potter act like a lust-crazed teenager and not like the man I've become. But a thought occurs to me as I leave Hogwarts, heading for home. 

He cared enough to want me to make a fool of myself. 

Pause. 

Look back at Hogwarts. 

Plan my next visit.


End file.
